He's got a family to support and there's not really a victim here, IMO. No dispute that kind of wrong doing isn't conducive to society but I certainly won't take much pleasure in seeing him receive a prolonged prison sentence. It's still kinda funny, though.

That has got to the be the funniest thing I've read in a LONG time. Thanks PBJ for making my day. I owe you a drink of your choice if you ever come to the Chicago-land area.

You have an excellent sense of humor, friend.

Was riding the clock anyway, so I skimmed parts of that interview. At one point, if I understood it correctly, he claims they bought up several hundred Nintendo boards and stacked them in a garage so that their ROM counterparts in the Ultracades were legal. (Setting aside the fact I don't believe him....) Ugh, really? We're back to THAT argument? Yeah, no.

He's got a family to support and there's not really a victim here, IMO. No dispute that kind of wrong doing isn't conducive to society but I certainly won't take much pleasure in seeing him receive a prolonged prison sentence. It's still kinda funny, though.

the victim is the public trust. its one thing to be a bootlegger, or a thief, but what he did was to sell his stuff as legal, so the people who are honest, the people who want something legit, something that isnt stolen, something that is legal, would buy from him.

anyone and everyone can steal and use arcade history any way they choose. his way was to fraudulently pretend to be legit, so people looking for a legit option to mame would pay him for his product.

in my mind he is no better than someone scamming old ladies for investment oppportunities or someone setting up a fraudulent charity operation. the ONLY reason people bought from him is because they believed he had the ONLY legit license to those games.

the victim is the public trust. its one thing to be a bootlegger, or a thief, but what he did was to sell his stuff as legal, so the people who are honest, the people who want something legit, something that isnt stolen, something that is legal, would buy from him.

anyone and everyone can steal and use arcade history any way they choose. his way was to fraudulently pretend to be legit, so people looking for a legit option to mame would pay him for his product.

in my mind he is no better than someone scamming old ladies for investment oppportunities or someone setting up a fraudulent charity operation. the ONLY reason people bought from him is because they believed he had the ONLY legit license to those games.

this lawsuit he's currently tied up in has to do with claiming he still worked for Global VR when he went to a bank (or banks) to obtain loans, when in fact he was (very) recently let go after the licencing fiasco regarding Ultracade which he had sold to Global VR. (Global found out he was making updates for the software which was now theirs, and was selling them on the side)

so, he's at the bank when the bank wanted to "verify employment", he had them call a friend of his and have him state he was whoever from Global VR and that yes he was working for Global VR. The bank found out about the sham and promptly began proceedings against him.

the victim is the public trust. its one thing to be a bootlegger, or a thief, but what he did was to sell his stuff as legal, so the people who are honest, the people who want something legit, something that isnt stolen, something that is legal, would buy from him.

anyone and everyone can steal and use arcade history any way they choose. his way was to fraudulently pretend to be legit, so people looking for a legit option to mame would pay him for his product.

in my mind he is no better than someone scamming old ladies for investment oppportunities or someone setting up a fraudulent charity operation. the ONLY reason people bought from him is because they believed he had the ONLY legit license to those games.

this lawsuit he's currently tied up in has to do with claiming he still worked for Global VR when he went to a bank (or banks) to obtain loans, when in fact he was (very) recently let go after the licencing fiasco regarding Ultracade which he had sold to Global VR. (Global found out he was making updates for the software which was now theirs, and was selling them on the side)

so, he's at the bank when the bank wanted to "verify employment", he had them call a friend of his and have him state he was whoever from Global VR and that yes he was working for Global VR. The bank found out about the sham and promptly began proceedings against him.

I spent about three years working as an Underwriting Quality Control person in a "Fraud Detection and prevention" department at a major bank. I used to catch stuff like this all the time. Like - daily. Doing background checks, digging into credit reports, etc. It was fun but stressful stuff. People would make paycheck stubs in MS Word and try to pass them off as legit. Have there brother's girlfriends sounds uncle verify employment that didn't exist. All sorts of crazy stuff. Sometimes small loads, sometimes big loans.

But I never saw one person I caught outright committing fraud prosecuted or sued. He must have really pissed someone off to get them to actually take him to court over it.

the victim is the public trust. its one thing to be a bootlegger, or a thief, but what he did was to sell his stuff as legal, so the people who are honest, the people who want something legit, something that isnt stolen, something that is legal, would buy from him.

anyone and everyone can steal and use arcade history any way they choose. his way was to fraudulently pretend to be legit, so people looking for a legit option to mame would pay him for his product.

in my mind he is no better than someone scamming old ladies for investment oppportunities or someone setting up a fraudulent charity operation. the ONLY reason people bought from him is because they believed he had the ONLY legit license to those games.

this lawsuit he's currently tied up in has to do with claiming he still worked for Global VR when he went to a bank (or banks) to obtain loans, when in fact he was (very) recently let go after the licencing fiasco regarding Ultracade which he had sold to Global VR. (Global found out he was making updates for the software which was now theirs, and was selling them on the side)

so, he's at the bank when the bank wanted to "verify employment", he had them call a friend of his and have him state he was whoever from Global VR and that yes he was working for Global VR. The bank found out about the sham and promptly began proceedings against him.

I spent about three years working as an Underwriting Quality Control person in a "Fraud Detection and prevention" department at a major bank. I used to catch stuff like this all the time. Like - daily. Doing background checks, digging into credit reports, etc. It was fun but stressful stuff. People would make paycheck stubs in MS Word and try to pass them off as legit. Have there brother's girlfriends sounds uncle verify employment that didn't exist. All sorts of crazy stuff. Sometimes small loads, sometimes big loans.

But I never saw one person I caught outright committing fraud prosecuted or sued. He must have really pissed someone off to get them to actually take him to court over it.

In the papers he filed to ask for leniency, he says that the bank never did take issue with it and he still has the loan and has made all payments.He claims the guy who was in charge at Global VR at the time has a personal vendetta against him and sicked the FBI on him for both selling Ultracade gamepacks and lying about his employment during closing. I dunno, but that's what is there.

On a site that posted the relevant information, it claimed to have called up or emailed certain companies in Japan, asking to see if Foley had negotiated the rights to certain games. They said No... had never heard of him.

On that webcast... he mentions that when he couldnt get the rights... he went online to ebay, and bought older PCBs for the roms. He figured that if he has the PCBs... he should own the rights to the games. Everyone wants to believe this... but Im not so sure that is the case... most especially when you are re-packaging something commercial for sale. Imagine trying to sell a used Sega Genesis game in a new bartop arcade box at Sears, without asking Sega... but just putting the cartridge inside the thing.

Then to find out on top of the fact most of his games couldnt be used, rendering his business model near useless... he finds out that his Former is cashing in on his remaining territory.

Because the IP was overseas, it makes it an International crime... and because Global VR may not have known that over half their IP was bogus... (and now the info spread all over the net about it) calling the FBI just may be within bounds.

Its quite slimy, to say the least.

Ohh, and no, hes not the one behind 4k tvs. He just managed to capitalize on a MGFs faulty chip, and used another MFGs chip to get his foot in the door.

On a site that posted the relevant information, it claimed to have called up or emailed certain companies in Japan, asking to see if Foley had negotiated the rights to certain games. They said No... had never heard of him.

On that webcast... he mentions that when he couldnt get the rights... he went online to ebay, and bought older PCBs for the roms. He figured that if he has the PCBs... he should own the rights to the games. Everyone wants to believe this... but Im not so sure that is the case... most especially when you are re-packaging something commercial for sale. Imagine trying to sell a used Sega Genesis game in a new bartop arcade box at Sears, without asking Sega... but just putting the cartridge inside the thing.

Then to find out on top of the fact most of his games couldnt be used, rendering his business model near useless... he finds out that his Former is cashing in on his remaining territory.

Because the IP was overseas, it makes it an International crime... and because Global VR may not have known that over half their IP was bogus... (and now the info spread all over the net about it) calling the FBI just may be within bounds.

Its quite slimy, to say the least.

Ohh, and no, hes not the one behind 4k tvs. He just managed to capitalize on a MGFs faulty chip, and used another MFGs chip to get his foot in the door.

Is he being sued for copyright infringement?

Has Nintendoh or Sega filled for damages?

You can get away with selling ROM chips if you hot glued them into the cabinets and used mame or Joshua to run the said game as it would be construed as fair use, especially if the board was deemed obsolete and the ROMS was considered as backups.

Besides we have gone down this route before. Foley is being pinched for securing loans under false pretenses.

Unless you have found some evidence that contradicts this, and should be reported to the necessary authorities handling Mr Foley's case.

So true dat. I especially like how xiau2 speculated on an international crime. Perhaps Foley's next trial will be in the Hague.

He has never let the facts slow down his opinions. I actually bothered to read the links from the first 2 pages, and the charges were for using the ultracade name and selling items as official UltraCade items when he didnt have the rights to, and for lying on bank loan applications. Nothing I read specified copyright infringement of ROMs.

Sorry, but I dont have time to read legal jargon, or for that matter, every snipit on the net.

I was basing my speculations on the Former things Ive read in a past article. One that contained a lot more of the factual occurrences. Whether or not they can be made into a legal claims, thats another story.

As for the Fair Use claim.. thats still highly suspect. As Ive said.. you would never get the green light to sell used sega genesis systems with a cartridge in it.. packaged in an arcade shell.. in a RETAIL outlet.. without getting proper licensing permissions.

If you wanted to ebay the thing... then sure, you could probably do it without issue. (Maybe not with Namco... cause anything with Pacman on it... and they go Berzerk) Probably ok to do it in a arcade... because nobody is gona peek inside anyways. (although, there are no arcades anymore)

Im pretty sure Fair Use is limited to personal properties.. rather than commercial business ventures. But Im no lawyer. Honestly, Im surprised that Nice Carvings hasnt gotten copyright notices on their reproductions. As far as Ive heard, many print shops wont copy / print things that have known copyrights... such as Disney characters.

i see company logos of like, Disney characters...comic book characters...etc and nobody is knocking down their doors with cease and desist notices. You know why? they aren't stirring the pot. they aren't trying to make money because of these characters.

i do however think that when companys capitalize on the character, IE, using the character itself to make money, they chance having the ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- hit the fan.

the victim is the public trust. its one thing to be a bootlegger, or a thief, but what he did was to sell his stuff as legal, so the people who are honest, the people who want something legit, something that isnt stolen, something that is legal, would buy from him.

anyone and everyone can steal and use arcade history any way they choose. his way was to fraudulently pretend to be legit, so people looking for a legit option to mame would pay him for his product.

in my mind he is no better than someone scamming old ladies for investment oppportunities or someone setting up a fraudulent charity operation. the ONLY reason people bought from him is because they believed he had the ONLY legit license to those games.

this lawsuit he's currently tied up in has to do with claiming he still worked for Global VR when he went to a bank (or banks) to obtain loans, when in fact he was (very) recently let go after the licencing fiasco regarding Ultracade which he had sold to Global VR. (Global found out he was making updates for the software which was now theirs, and was selling them on the side)

so, he's at the bank when the bank wanted to "verify employment", he had them call a friend of his and have him state he was whoever from Global VR and that yes he was working for Global VR. The bank found out about the sham and promptly began proceedings against him.

I spent about three years working as an Underwriting Quality Control person in a "Fraud Detection and prevention" department at a major bank. I used to catch stuff like this all the time. Like - daily. Doing background checks, digging into credit reports, etc. It was fun but stressful stuff. People would make paycheck stubs in MS Word and try to pass them off as legit. Have there brother's girlfriends sounds uncle verify employment that didn't exist. All sorts of crazy stuff. Sometimes small loads, sometimes big loans.

But I never saw one person I caught outright committing fraud prosecuted or sued. He must have really pissed someone off to get them to actually take him to court over it.

In the papers he filed to ask for leniency, he says that the bank never did take issue with it and he still has the loan and has made all payments.He claims the guy who was in charge at Global VR at the time has a personal vendetta against him and sicked the FBI on him for both selling Ultracade gamepacks and lying about his employment during closing. I dunno, but that's what is there.

You know - I had a few VPs in the company make similar comments. "Every Identity thieves make loan payments" and other comments on that line. Money is money to that bank (now out of business).

i see company logos of like, Disney characters...comic book characters...etc and nobody is knocking down their doors with cease and desist notices. You know why? they aren't stirring the pot. they aren't trying to make money because of these characters.

really? there are schools around here that have been forced to paint over Disney characters (provided to them by charity workers) due to trademark / copyright issues after getting attention in local news stories*. Even if it's Snow White / Alice in Wonderland / Cinderalla you have to be very careful that they're not the Disney styled versions.

Disney is one the worst when it comes to this kind of thing over both trademarks and copyright and like to make it sound like they're doing you a favor by not just taking you to court.

The game companies are by comparison absolute angels, even EA / Blizzard.

* I have a feeling the papers contacted Disney hoping for some positive comments about the work done only to have it backfire completely.

I looked into trademark stuff (albeit north of the border) and one thing that was abundantly clear is that if you don't defend your trademark at every opportunity than it can be forfeited or at least legally challenged. So while I dislike all those disney moments where they go after little guys, I get why they do it. Failure to do so would open them up to all sorts of legal challenges by other "dave foley" types who try and get away with as much crap as they can. I gave up on trademarking a name for no other reason than I didn't want to waste my time policeing it--it wasn't that valuable..

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its better to not post and be thought a fool, then to whip out your keyboard and remove all doubt...

Just to clarify for those who don't have the time to read the stuff, he's never been charged with any kind of trademark or copyright infringement when it comes to the original IP holders of the games and actually did have licensing agreements with some of those companies.

He plead guilty to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. The fraud being that he sold gamepacks for the ultracade as being produced by Ultracade Technologies when he no longer owned the company or had rights to the name. Global VR noticed that Ultracade gamepacks weren't selling, so they called up the distributors and found out Dave was still selling gamepacks himself instead of directing people to the new owner (and his employer), Global VR.He was terminated immediately.

In the papers filed by his lawyer, he claims the sale to Global VR never officially went through so he's only guilty of using the name of a company which is no longer in existence. On the flip side, he also argues that he ended up paying Capcom royalties that should have been Global VR's responsibility based on the sale agreement.

IANAL, but if commercial infringing activities are observed, I don't believe there is any need for the IP holders to make a complaint in order for proceedings to begin. It is a criminal statute, so there is no need for the JD to get permission. It would probably have to be fairly egregious to happen without their involvement, but not absolutely necessary. Of course, once such proceedings began, and the IP holders notified, few if any would be turning a blind eye to the situation.

Probably not relevant in this particular case, but the earlier remark about it seemed a bit off.

Just to clarify for those who don't have the time to read the stuff, he's never been charged with any kind of trademark or copyright infringement when it comes to the original IP holders of the games and actually did have licensing agreements with some of those companies.

That would be because IP infringement is a civil offense and thus would be subject to civil litigation. This is not a "charges" in this context. If we're talking about being charged in this context it is because they determined it was being used to commit commercial fraud when he was selling it. Just using someone else's IP is not criminal. It is civil.

Bank fraud, on the other hand, is a felony. That is very criminal and thus charges were filed. Foley is facing severe criminal charges and also a heavy load of civil litigation.

It's very important to keep those two concepts separate. It destroys the whole discussion to mix them.

I've learned over the years of visiting here that any topic concerning this guy is one to stay clear of and I always have avoided the Dave Foley threads, but I can finally say I'm happy he got what he deserves.

The Arcade Kingdom is now at peace...

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"Every arcade we restore preserves history that we will never experience again..."

I've learned over the years of visiting here that any topic concerning this guy is one to stay clear of and I always have avoided the Dave Foley threads, but I can finally say I'm happy he got what he deserves.

The Arcade Kingdom is now at peace...

You may be confusing him with Dave Adams, the star wars yoke/repro cab guy who took a bunch of people's money and never sent their parts.I don't remember seeing any other threads about Foley on this board.

If this garage full of boards exists then it could go a long way towards explaining why pcbs have gotten so much pricier since I got into the hobby.

It's straight across the board. There's no way he has enough PCBs to affect the overall market. Especially in your general area of b/w and really old games. That's way outside of the Ultracade game list.